John Delcos enters his third season covering the Mets for The Journal News after eight seasons on the Yankees beat. Prior to coming to New York, John covered the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians.

John – I’m thinking about the Baseball Hall of Fame and players who don’t get in even though they have been terrific players i.e. Keith Hernandez – I saw him play a lot during his years with the Mets and he was simply great. You’ve got a vote – how do you make your choices or, is that a secret?

Joan: No secret. I always tell who I vote for. It is partly stat driven. Also if that player was dominant in his era, or made a significant contribution. There is also some comparison shopping; how that player compared to others at his position in his era.-JD

Joan – you said Alou needed the rest I would have played him today because there’s an off day tomorrow and there are better odds of winning today to hold the lead going into a tough series against SD. rest him first game against SD with Young on the mound= would be a tough win anyway. take 5 out of 6 intstead of 4-2 losing both get away games against bottom feeders

This pen situation is nuts….. either bring up a kid and give him a try or trade for whats available.

Schoe, mota and Sele aren’t helping, so everybody else is burning up carrying the load, Now Heilman and Feliciano are shakey my guess is over use and the one shining set-up man went from a five day rotation to every day sometimes multiple innings….

god i hope sosa can hold up till and through october. he looks extremly impressive but theres gotta be some caution with him pitching so much. on the contrary schowenweis is starting to pitch less then sele

To NYM: Seeing Sosa again is another example of how Mota is hurting this team. The innings are piling up on Sosa. Why? In part because Randolph – regardless of what he says to the contrary – really doesn’t have faith in Mota right now. If he did, the workload might be distributed differently. So, with Mota, it’s not only the innings he blows up, but the innings that get piled on elsewhere.-JD

Another question for anyone I guess..
Philip Humber in struggling in AAA and one reason has to be because his elbow injury has stoped him from throwing his splitter, is there any time in his career when he would be able to throw it again pain free?

Did Feliciano, hurt or re-injure something? It looked like he was limping at the end of the game. He hasn’t pitched a great deal lately. Its obvious that Willie doesn’t want to go to Mota, Sele or Schoenweiss, so if Feliciano is not 100% that is a big load on Sosa, Heilman and Wagner. Related question, do you know the specifics of Mota’s contract? Could he be sent to the minors without his permission, or would he need to be DFA’d if he came off of the 25 man roster?

I forget why exactly but… last year, I got the feeling Willie didn’t like Feliciano PERSONALLY for some reason and… while Willie will play guys he doesn’t like if they’re tearing things up, the moment they’re no longer doing that, they get benched and benched hard.

Not sure if your being sarcastic or not, BUT, Feliciano had a falling out with Willie last year because he kept him in a game when he really didn’t have his stuff; he said somethings to the media that stirred the pot and Willie said his attitude wasn’t that of a winner.

I remember one time last year Felicano worked an inning or two in one game then Willie put him the next day early in the game the next day… maybe 4th or 5th inning and he got roughed up. Feliciano complained in the media that Oliver should have been brought in because he was the long man, etc. They seemed to get over it, but that may be what you remember.

I don’t know why you say, John, that Chavez won’t come back until September 1. It seems his rehab is going well; they wouldn’t just let him stew down there. Unfortunately, Green got some hits today, so that might keep him on the roster longer, especially if they don’t get a right-handed bench player to replace Easley. Conine sounds good because he can back up first base, and then they can say bye-bye to Green. It’s not like they owe him that much more money. They should take a lesson from Leyland—demoting Monroe even though he was gold in last year’s playoffs, but playing badly now.

What’s with all this Conine love? I don’t get it. Guy’s 41. Has a worse OPS than Green. Only plays 1st. At last Green plays the outfield and first base and is a good baserunner with 9 stolen bases. Conine is a downgrade from Greem, IMO.

Great great weekend.. SWEEP….. and there’s still complaining, oh my… 8-2 is pretty good and they did what last year’s guy’s did…rip the other pen…
And for Willie bashers like Mike C, where are the knocks on Acta. what a bad job of managing. Game tied guy on first # 7 guy up, he bunts then he uses his one good player off the bench with a guy on second,, and that “bad” manager Willie Randolph walks Dimitri Young taking him out of the game. If you’re gonna blast Willie then blast Acta. He stunk the joint up 2 days in a row. Willie did fine!!!!

And someone’s sorry Green got a big hit. What kind of Mets fan is this??? The guy finally did something good and what did you do, boo… He’s on the roster and as JD said he ain’t leaving and with a bigger bench hes on the post season roster. Wake up boys and girls and smell the roses… 5 game lead… despite guys going down all the time…. guys are now hitting with runners in scoring position, and the poor Beltran anti-fans…. hope you didn’t cry over those bombs and the early SF.
boohoo…

Worry about the pen…. Its scary bad. Sosa is the new Turk… Pitch every day and never tell the manager you can’t go. The rest of the guys are all scary except Wags….1 Sep I think the whole NewOrleans staff will show up.

Did Mike C cry cause his boy Chip didn’t get called up….. I hope the call up Endy and Ender, and Jose A reyes the catcher so we don’t know who anyone is.
Anyway I’d suggest you all go to RFK so you never complain about any other park again because it is one big ugly dump!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Met fans were really coming out of the woodwork today. Even saw a guy with a # 26 Rico Brogna jersey on!!!! Top that one.

Sloppy, glad to see you had a good time at RFK. Yup, there’s little reason to complain. However, Mota is a disgrace. Maybe you can get him into the witness protection program until his contract expires next year? They need to do something.

Resting Alou was great managing. Old and fragile but as hot as anything it had to be oh so tempting to play him today. But a great manager looked ahead and said I need him for the Phils and Braves and he gave the guy 2 days off and Marlon rewarded him mightily for it. GOOD JOB WILLIE!!!!

I also notice Feliciano limping off the field and haven’t heard anything about his condition. Anyone have any additional information?

One thought: I understand that the Mets are not interested in Piazza as a catcher. With the loss of Easley, they are likely in the market for a RH pinch hitter. Assuming that Piazza’s shoulder has sufficiently healed, he would seem to be a good choice. He has proven that he can play in NYC. And since he’s already cleared waivers (and the A’s MUST be looking to dump all or part of his salary), he could probably be had pretty cheap. Perhaps I’m just being nostalgic …

unbelievable. I get my wish. Easley on 1st. does a great job. then gets injured running the bases. sigh Green on first wasnt too shabby also.
But I WAS RIGHT!!! Delgado finally sat out a few games. and funny how we won all but 1. amazing.. so it doesnt appear that Delgado, playing subpar was better than “trying” another player. My only hope is everyone “HEALS” properly so they play to their potential.
Lets Go Mets Go!

did you enjoy attacking my comment? i sure hope so. If you read carefully. if you were part of the other discussions you would know that everyone here felt there was no replacing Delgado, and I was saying that we had a few options.
So my comment above was based on the fact that. look delgado had to be replaced and the options I mentioned actually worked. and we didnt suffer for it..

so before you attack .. think .. or maybe you are just incredibly … never mind it isnt worth it..